I've had my appetite for Hoodia and its allies whetted recently, and have poked around to find a good supplier of a range of seed. Although I am only just about to order from him, Vlado Viglasky of Arizona Cactus Garden has a huge selection (of cacti and succulents), and about the cheapest prices I have seen.

I'll let you know in a few weeks how things go - unless you try him first!

Hi wood dragon, I have bought seeds from vlado before - a few different species of Hoodia. the germ rates were about 60 % although I had problems with black mold soon after germination. only one sad looking gordonii survives. I would recomend a fungicide like mancozeb while sowing. good luck with your seeds. I'm trying to find a cheaper source than Vlado. I'll let you know!

I've germinated my gordonii in straight, good quality river sand, in CFC, and I opened the lids a little after a few weeks. I had no fungus/mould problems at all - so far, and it's been a month an a half. I had about the same germination rate as you, and the littlies are between 2cm and 3cm now.

The last to germinate had both ends under the substrate, with the seed-coat visible at one end. After discovering that trich seedlings can sometimes go mouldy if one tries to 'help' remove the coats I avoided doing this with the Hoodia. A week later there was no rising of the meristem, so I bit the bullet and gentley removed the coat, only to find that it was stuck on the root and that the tip had died...

That was two days ago. I turned the seedling so that what remained of the root was in the sand, although the apical meristem is still staring at the ground! It's greening up a little, so I might save it, but if this is a characteristic of Hoodias you might want to watch that they're all emerging from the seed-coats toes first.

I'm quite taken with Hoodias, although I am becoming obsessed with a relative of theirs. Perhaps I'll post a thread about my slide into the dark next week.

Which makes me wonder - why has no Cactophile appeared yet on The Collectors? I reckon we'd all stay in to watch an episode if it were a good collection!

I've germinated my gordonii in straight, good quality river sand, in CFC, and I opened the lids a little after a few weeks. I had no fungus/mould problems at all - so far, and it's been a month an a half. I had about the same germination rate as you, and the littlies are between 2cm and 3cm now.

The last to germinate had both ends under the substrate, with the seed-coat visible at one end. After discovering that trich seedlings can sometimes go mouldy if one tries to 'help' remove the coats I avoided doing this with the Hoodia. A week later there was no rising of the meristem, so I bit the bullet and gentley removed the coat, only to find that it was stuck on the root and that the tip had died...

That was two days ago. I turned the seedling so that what remained of the root was in the sand, although the apical meristem is still staring at the ground! It's greening up a little, so I might save it, but if this is a characteristic of Hoodias you might want to watch that they're all emerging from the seed-coats toes first.

I'm quite taken with Hoodias, although I am becoming obsessed with a relative of theirs. Perhaps I'll post a thread about my slide into the dark next week.

Which makes me wonder - why has no Cactophile appeared yet on The Collectors? I reckon we'd all stay in to watch an episode if it were a good collection!

Mine took about a week for the first one, to about three for the last, although there are still a few seeds that might pop if I'm lucky.

I soaked them in warm water for 24 hours before planting, and two had just split the coats by the time I planted them. I soak all my trichs too, and get up to 95% germination, but I think that next time I'd be careful to plant hoodias before they get to the splitting of the seed-coat stage.

I was impatient, so they went in last month. The indoors temperature here is probably in the low 20s during the day, but it gets down to around 10 degrees early am. In future I'd wait for spring - or stop being a student so that I can afford a large heat matt!

I'll photograph the darlin's if anyone's really interested.

bob-bob

Number of posts : 11Location : SydneyRegistration date : 2008-03-17

Subject: Re: WANTED Hoodia... yeah right! Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:06 pm

Nice WD, would love to see some photos. I will have to try soaking my seeds sometime.

I had 2 batches of 10 H. Gordonii and managed a 60% and 70% germ rate just over two weeks. One batch turned to goo and the other batch lost all but 2.

BTW, I have you to thank for my excursion into Hoodias... As if I didn't have enough obsessions already!

I noticed a couple of tiny black spots on one of my Hoodia's cotyledons after watertrade's comment, where some condensation had dripped onto it, so I might have to bite the bullet and buy some mancozeb. Can it be applied directly to seedlings, or am I likely stuffed with this seedling?

I'm on tank water, so it's pure Southern Tasmanian cloud juice, and no artifical colourings, flavourings or preservatives. I love it so much that I can't even drink town water now!

And yep, I soak all my trichs. Bridgii, pachanoi, terscheckii, cuzcoensis, and peruvianus so far, and about another dozen trich species to go - when I have room. The peruvianus from one of the suppliers had very poor germination, but I think it might be a batch problem, since other seeds from that source weren't much chop. Either that, or it's the fact that I'm running the seeds a little cool (even though they're indoors). In future though I am not going to soak all of the seeds from a peruvianus batch, just in case.

I'm not sure if it applies to all of the trich species, but I am operating on the fact that some seeds require the leeching of anti-germination agents from within the seeds themselves. Many arid-region plants are designed to avoid germination unless there has been a really good soak of rain - otherwise their babies might sprout without the sufficient moisture in the environment that they'd need to make it past the delicate young stages.

For each batch of seed I use a cupful of previously boiled, tepid water. I just put the seeds into the cup, swirl (carefully!) to sink them, and cover and leave on the kitchen counter for a day. Then I syringe them up and squirt them willy-nilly onto the surface of the river sand, and keep the lid on the food container for a couple of weeks. Once the first spines appear, I carefully lift one corner of each lid just a bit, to allow a bit of air circulation and a slow drop of humidity.

The only time that I have had fungus was when I picked up a seedling that was growing upside-down, and I bruised its meristem. I plucked that one individual out after that, and everything's been hunky-dory ever since.

Doing it this way I have 80-95% germination, and I reckon most of the ones that don't sprout are the wizened, cracked and squished ones that wouldn't grow no matter what I did. So I'm happy - the only thing that could make it better is a heat mat so that they grow a little faster!